


You're Gone (And I Gotta Stay High)

by redlittleowl



Category: Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-12 22:59:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5684410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redlittleowl/pseuds/redlittleowl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who would have thought the tactician would have the nerve to just up and disappear after the final battle?</p>
<p>To be fair, though, they really should have seen it coming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You're Gone (And I Gotta Stay High)

_The tactician disappeared after the final battle. Bern, Lycia, and Etruria all sought those famed skills…_

The tactician disappears shortly after Nergal’s defeat and the closing of the dragon portal; when asked, though, no one can really say exactly when she vanished. Lyn insists that she was with the army up until they set up camp for the night, and no one argues that it would have been very possible for the tactician to have disappeared amid the hustle and bustle of the night’s celebrations.

(Secretly, though, everyone agrees that the tactician disappeared long before that.)

The army, not so ragtag anymore, celebrates as any group would after having saved the world, but their celebrations are muted, half-hearted without the presence of the woman who guided them through so many battles. They murmur in their small groups about what happened to the tactician, where she possibly could have gone, and the general consensus is that she’s just taking her sweet time in coming back to the group, maybe deciding what she’ll do now that the war is over.

It’s much harder to hang on to that conviction when she still hasn’t appeared the next morning, or even the day after, when Fargus finally insists on leaving a full day after they were scheduled to depart. Erk, in his brash, off-beat way, suggests that maybe she swam back to the mainland to preempt the congratulations she was certainly not looking forward to. As absurd as it is, it gives everyone a little bit of hope to hold on to.

(Ninian, in her heart of hearts—though she will never tell anyone—firmly believes that the tactician stayed behind on Valor Island and vanished into the portal just before it closed.)

Those hopes are dashed when they get to Badon and hear nothing of a brown-haired woman in earthy robes. Secretly, though, not everyone is surprised—after all, the tactician was a nobody before she met Lyn, and certainly she has the knowledge and abilities to remain so for as long as she desires, as long as the three lords refrain from looking for her.

(Jaffar, in particular, is convinced that, with everything she learned from Legault before he died, that the tactician will never be found unless she absolutely wants to—even if she forgets to cover her tracks every now and then. He doesn’t really fault her.)

Of course, Lyn enlists the help of the Sacaen tribes to look for the tactician, and she and her husband Rath look the hardest. Neither hide nor hair of the tactician is ever found, and Lyn eventually calls off the search after a year and a half when she discovers she’s pregnant. It’s a hard blow to the couple who always prided themselves on their skills on the plains.

Eliwood and Hector keep their ears to the ground, of course, and Matthew can always be counted on to follow up on any news of a woman who may, even vaguely, fit the tactician’s description. Nothing ever comes of their efforts, though, but it’s not for lack of trying.

(It’s a blow to Matthew’s pride in his tracking skills that he never finds anything, but a small voice in the back of his head tells him that there was never anything to find in the first place.)

Even Merlinus tries to follow up on any leads, although his flip-flopping between fear and excitement nets him with even less information than Matthew—although less information than nothing is still no information, as Vaida angrily reminds him whenever he drives away anyone who might have known anything.

Karel knows everyone expects him to come back with information about the tactician after he pulls his own disappearing act, but he has always aimed to disappoint—especially after learning of his sister’s death and her husband and son, he finds he has no real desire to go looking for information on someone who has probably been dead the last twenty-one years.

(He doesn’t really know if he believes that she’s dead, but he thinks it’s a much likelier alternative than her having kept absolutely silent the past two decades, or disappearing into the Dragon Gate after Nils—he can see in Ninian’s eyes what she believes, and he doesn’t know whether to laugh in her face for it or agree with her, however insane it may sound.)

It’s a hard reality to live in, that their beloved tactician disappeared on them without a warning or a thank you or a goodbye, but eventually they all accept it, and it’s a weight they carry with them for the rest of their days. Even as rumors of war spread again through Elibe, the weight of her ghost pulls the survivors together against the odds, even though most of them are on their last legs, their final breaths in their lungs.

When war breaks out once more, it’s with a hardened resolve that they swear to carry on her legacy and win the war with as few casualties as possible.

(Hector faces his death with pride, Armads in hand, and grins at the thought of being reunited with Farina and the tactician. He’s one of the few who accepted early on that the tactician was dead, and perhaps that made accepting his own death easier as well.)

They win their battles, and they win the war, and in the end the tactician never reappears.

(It’s what Lyn knew all along, really, she just never wanted to admit that her best friend was gone.)

_…but none ever found the tactician._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The tactician awakens to a blue-haired man bending over her, concern on his face, a red diamond on his forehead. He extends a hand to help her up, and she accepts, glancing over at Nils with a smile.

(Perhaps this world will need her like Elibe did. And perhaps, just perhaps, she’ll find who she’s looking for. Maybe.)


End file.
